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REVIEWING OTHERNESS: REPRESENTATIONS and THEORIES of UGLINESS in MODERN FRENCH CULTURE REVIEWING OTHERNESS: REPRESENTATIONS and THEORIES of UGLINESS in MODERN FRENCH CULTURE NICOLA COTTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON PhD Dissertation ProQuest Number: U643450 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U643450 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT Reviewing Otherness: Representations And Theories Of Ugliness In Modern French Culture This dissertation explores the issue of ugliness in modem French culture. Within a broad framework of the relation between the self and the other, it seeks to answer the following questions: what is ugliness? how is it perceived? where is it found? why is it important? In contrast to traditional ideas about ugliness, where it is seen merely as beauty’s opposite, the discussion focuses on areas of literature, art and theoretical debate in which the ugly warrants attention on its own, more positive terms. To this end, five distinct areas of study are proposed as follows: 1. Caricature as ‘the art of ugliness’. The deployment of ugliness as a political weapon and as a means of negotiating social identity in emerging bourgeois culture after 1789. 2. The nose as support for the architecture of the face and as the cornerstone for a topography of human history where the world is seen as a face. Exceptional noses as points of radical discontinuity in totalising narratives of the collective self. 3. The turning point for ugliness in France. Romantic aesthetics and the movement of the ugly from the ‘ridiculous’ to the sublime. 4. The rôle of ugliness in the precarious domain of existential identity. The revelation, through ugliness-related nausea, of contingency. Sartre’s theory of the Other and the alienation of the self by means of ‘the look’. 5. Ugliness as a gendered negative value positioned on the side of women. Feminist re-consideration and re-writing of that situation as a way of revaluing ugliness - and women themselves - positively. The approach adopted does not claim to give an exhaustive account of ugliness; rather, it offers a series of perspectives which together indicate the strategic importance and cultural significance of the ugly in France from the 17^ century to the present. To my father and my grandmother, who never had the chance to study as I have done. And for Justin. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks to: Michael Worton, my supervisor, for believing in me and in my project Mark Cousins for the lectures which inspired me Jim and Gillian for their enthusiasm Mac for his support and sense of perspective My family and friends for being there when I was absent and for still being there when I returned The British Academy for three years of funding CONTENTS List o f Illustrations IV Note to the Reader VI Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Caricature and the Ugly Other 17 Works cited 67 Chapter 2 On the Nose 70 Works cited 106 Chapter 3 From the Ridiculous to the Sublime 108 Works cited 145 Chapter 4 Ugliness is an Existential Issue: 146 Sartrean Nausea and the Hell of Other People Works cited 204 Chapter 5 Reviewing and Revaluing Ugliness 207 on the Side of Women 247 Works cited Conclusion 249 Full Bibliography 258 IV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Illustration Source 1 Leonardo da Vinci: Champfleury (1880) Histoire de la caricature sous la caricature of an old man laughing Réforme et la Ligue. Louis XIII à Louis XVI (Paris: Dentu), 107. Charles Le Brun: ‘La Tranquillité’, Montagu, Jennifer (1994) The Expression o f the c. 1668 Passions. The Origin and Influence o f Charles Le Brun ’s ‘Conférence sur l ‘expression générale et particulière ’ (New Haven & London: Yale University Press), 18. Charles Le Brun: Le mépris et la Montagu (1994: 133). haine’, c. 1668. Albrecht Dürer: studies of heads, Posner, Donald (1971) Annibale Carracci: A study in the woodcut, 1528. (from Vier Bûcher reform of Italian painting around 1590, vol. 1 (London: von Menschlicher Proportion, Bk. Phaidon), Fig. 62. III). Albrecht Dürer: study o f heads, pen Hoffman, Werner (1957) Caricature from Leonardo to and ink, c. 1513. Picasso (London: John Calder), 17. Anonymous revolutionary Baecque, Antoine de (1988)La Caricature caricature: ‘Père Oquet’, 1789. révolutionnaire (Paris: Presses du CNRS), 88. Anon.: Marie-Antoinette as a harpy, De Baecque (1988: 187). 1789. Anon.: ‘La Poulie d’Autriche’, De Baecque (1988: 187). 1791. 9 Anon.:‘L’Égout Royal’, 1791. De Baecque (1988: 180). 10 Anon.: ‘Ah! Le maudit animal’, c De Baecque (1988: 184). 1791. 11 Anon.: Harpie aveugle, 1791. Langlois, Claude (1988) La Caricature conti'e- révolutionnaire (Paris: Presses du CNRS). 74. 12 Charles Philipon: sketches, 1831. Gerd Unverfehrt, ed. (1980)La Caricature. Bildsatire in Frankreich 1830-1835, exhibition catalogue, Kunstgeschichtliches Seminar der Universitât Gottingen (Gottingen: Erich Goltze), 99. 13 Honoré Daumier: ‘Gargantua’, Hyman, Timothy and Roger Malbert (2000) 1831. Camivalesque, National Touring Exhibitions catalogue (London: Hayward Gallery Publishing), 58. 14 Charles-Joseph Traviès: ‘Hercule Grand-Carteret (1888: 207). Vainqueur’, 1834. 15 Charles-Joseph Traviès:‘Pot de Grand-Carteret (1888: 199). Mélasse’, 1832. 16 Henry Monnier: Bourgeoise, 1832. Monnier, Henry (1832) Physiologie du bourgeois (Paris: Aubert), 82. 17 Honoré Daumier: From the series Wechsler, Judith (1982)A Human Comedy. The Public at the Exhibition, 1864. Physiognomy and Caricature in 19'^ Century Paris (London: Thames and Hudson), 119. 18 Honoré Daumier;‘Robert Macaire Daumier, Honoré (1926) Les Cent Robert Macaire agent matrimonial’ from the d ’Honoré Daumier, pref. Florent Fels (Paris: L’Art et le Caricaturana series (1836-38). Livre), no. 13. 19 Anon.: Mayeux as Narcissus, 1831. Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes microfiche collection. There are various alternative catalogues for the Mayeux caricatures. Mayeux as Narcissus is listed under the Meunié series as no. 64 and under the ‘Histoire complette [sic] de M. Mayeux’ series as no. 55. 20 Charles-Joseph Traviès: ‘Qu’en Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes dites-vous, la petite chatte...?’, microfiche. The caricatures of Mayeux specific to 1831. Traviès appear in a numbered series entitled ‘Facéties de M. Mayeux’ of which this is no. 30. Meunié series no. 132. 21 Charles-Joseph Traviès: ‘Out of the Wechsler (1982: 83). question, my dear...’, 1831. 22 Honoré Daumier: Henry Monnier in Wechsler (1982:113). the rôle of Joseph Prudhomme, 1852. 23 Henry Monnier: double caricature Wechsler (1982:129). of Joseph Prudhomme and Henry Monnier, 1871. 24 Anon: Portrait o f Cyrano de Edmond Rostand (1990) Cyrano de Bergerac (Paris: Bergerac Livre de Poche), 161. 25 Abraham Bosse: ‘Le Capitaine Hoffman (1957: 73). Fracasse’, engraving, date unknown. 26 Edmond Rostand: sketch of Cyrano Rostand, Edmond (1991) Cyrano de Bergerac (Paris: Larousse), 13. VI NOTE TO THE READER To minimise the number of footnotes, references are given in author-date format with a list of works cited at the end of each chapter. A full bibliography is also given after the final conclusion. Dates in square brackets indicate date of first publication. All French sources are quoted in French. In chapter 5, however, certain texts by Hélène Cixous which I have been unable to find in the original are quoted in English. Emphasis within quoted extracts is original unless otherwise stated. Introduction A conventional approach to ugliness would be to see it as beauty’s opposite. In keeping with the binary logic that underpins and structures Western thought, beauty and ugliness then fall swiftly into line with an entire tradition of culturally-coded binarisms that privilege one term over the other: ancient Greek notions of purity and impurity, for example, Christian beliefs about good and evil, or Cartesian ideas about the mind and the body. Such oppositions can do no more than offer a negative theory of the ugly which tells us nothing about it other than what it is not. It would be possible to accumulate a vast array of material on this basis, but to do so as an end in itself would merely confirm what we know already. By contrast, the avenues of ugliness proposed in this dissertation - caricature, the nose, the sublime, existential nausea and ugliness in women’s writing - do not begin and end with ideas about beauty; rather they explore areas of literature, art and theoretical discussion in which the ugly warrants attention on its own terms. An approach such as this makes no claim to give an exhaustive account of ugliness, either chronologically or in terms of comprehensive coverage; rather it offers a series of perspectives which together indicate the strategic importance and cultural significance of the ugly in France ranging from the 11^^ century to the present. What is ugliness? From the point of view of the practical gardener, there is no such thing as a weed, merely a plant that is growing in the wrong place. One has simply to remove it. From the point of the ‘theoretical gardener’, however, a herbaceous border that has been lovingly tended and organised will be wrecked (if only temporarily) by the pernicious presence of just one unwelcome plant. The proud display of an entire flower bed is as nothing compared to the impact on the gardener of that one stray stalk. The weed is there when it absolutely does not belong there. It is, to borrow the famous phrase from Mary Douglas, matter out of place (Douglas 1984: 35).^ Not only does the weed ' The formulation of ugliness in terms of matter out of place was first made by Mark Cousins in his inspirational lecture series on ‘The Ugly’ given at the Architectural Association in London during the INTRODUCTION 2 min the whole effect, it also calls into question the relation between the gardener and his ‘world’.
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